Half a buying opportunity

12.48 pm I was away yesterday and missed a quiet day which managed to stem the recent losses with a mild turnaround. Today has seen an extension of that recovery though some early strength quickly faded. I don't necessarily think it's time to pile in to the market because it's not clear whether the retracement has run its course but there are a couple of buy signals emerging in stocks that are in decent trends.
One of these is A2 Milk where I've gone long at 717. The buy signal was yesterday so I haven't got the ideal entry. My hope is that this is the start of a drive to 800 though I think it's quite likely the rally might peter out below that, perhaps before another leg of correction. Here's the daily.

Platinum is looking good today following good press about potential performance fees and a retracement that has been losing steam having completed at a higher low thanks to the push higher today. Long at 750 with the stock a little higher at 755.

The small cap book has been a good winner for me lately but given the volatility of small stocks, it has cost money this week. Yesterday saw consolidation and today there's a small gain thanks mainly to Kogan which is up 9% on an upgrade.
My feeling is that's there some rotation in the small caps and tentative signs of support for some of the strong stocks from a month or two back. One of these is Updater which peaked in late August and has had a long choppy retracement which hasn't really breached significant support. I'm long at 121 as the stock confirms the turn.

4.31 The combination of being in retracement mode and also a Friday took the wind out of the sales though the ASX 200 managed a 14 point gain to 5958. This was close to the low of the day.